the absterabbi

Humanitarian. Foodie. Blogger. Traveler. Humanbean. 

​latest posts

parlez-vous français ?

Rather than waiting for my free 100 hours of French lessons in a school of questionable quality, I signed up for 40 hours of French in Alliance Française Strasbourg over a 2 week period in the middle of a couple of deployments. Disclaimer: universally, I am known to be terrible at languages, including my native tongue of Filipino. In university, I scorned French because I thought it was incredibly mainstream (in hindsight, this hipster decision of mine was a karmic bitch slap to the face) and took Italian instead… because I really loved Italian food. This is not the best basis for a decision like this. Sage advice, you can point at a menu without having to say a word but it’s embarrassing to have to mime using a toilet because you can’t speak the language. To this day, all I remember is “io sono Gabriela”, which doesn’t really take you anywhere. ​

l'integration en france

There’s probably hundreds of articles and books written about moving to France by people of varying nationalities (Peter Mayle has probably cornered 5% profitability on that topic alone). Totally unoriginal, I’m now going to be one of those people. Don’t say I didn’t give you fair warning. Not that I think my experience is unique - far from it -  but there is something about moving and living in France that appeals to my sense of humor and irony. ​

the move (us - the philippines- france)

Last year, we made the decision to move to France after a crazy exhausting year hopping back and forth (mainly for me) from the Philippines to the United States to France to Sierra Leone. Ten months ago, we finally did it and ended up in Strasbourg, a lucky coincidence because when I visited the city last year, I fell in love with everything about it. But before the fairytale of living in this amazingly beautiful historic city, there was the comedy that came with the move. ​

glass ceiling unbroken

Years ago, when Barack Obama first came in as a potential Democratic presidential candidate, I was still very much for Hilary Rodham Clinton. I’m not American but I liked her style and I really wished I could vote for her. She was tough, she stood for things I believed in, and I just felt like she had proven herself many times over. But Obama was charismatic and smart, and he swayed me and I thought, “well, there’s always the next time. And she’ll be the next US President.” I was absolutely sure of it then. ​

why I am not sold on Ebola quarantines for households

I thought that in coming to Sierra Leone and working in an Ebola response, I would have a lot of thought as fodder to blog about. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s five months after and a massive case of writer’s block as I struggle with understanding enough of the complexities of this response to write something coherent about it.

a competition of emergencies

​Excerpted into an op-ed piece on Philippine Daily Inquirer on 19 December 2013. 

With the spate of emergencies hitting the Philippines in the last few years, more than ever, there's a need for the country to be smarter and think bigger about how to approach the scale-breaking disasters we will most likely get in the next few years. 
blogs to catch up on

why aid delivery isn't instant -- and ways it could be faster

Also published on Oxfam's blog here.

When our rapid assessment teams came back from Leyte and Eastern Samar, they came from a total information blackout into a storm of angry and combative debate on the efficiency of government response to supertyphoon Haiyan victims.

why i am not sold on ebola quarantines for households

I thought that in coming to Sierra Leone and working in an Ebola response, I would have a lot of thought as fodder to blog about. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s five months after and a massive case of writer’s block as I struggle with understanding enough of the complexities of this response to write something coherent about it.

social media

All blogs and photographs posted here are written or taken by me, unless otherwise indicated. Please don't lift and post it on other websites or materials, unless full and clear credit with links to this blog is provided.  Much appreciated!